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BASEBALL; Ripken's Version Is Unlike Valentine's

Cal Ripken held his annual State of Cal address at the Baltimore Orioles' camp in Fort Lauderdale today.

But while Ripken said he had indeed described Armando Benitez, the former Orioles reliever, as gutsy, he also said he did not tell Mets Manager Bobby Valentine that Benitez's infamous drilling of Tino Martinez at Yankee Stadium last May ''was the most manly thing he's ever seen a guy do,'' as Valentine said on his new reliever's behalf last week.

From Ripken's comments, it sounded like a simple misunderstanding. Valentine, who has admitted he sometimes cannot help himself from saying too much, held his tongue when informed of Ripken's semicontradictory comments today.

''No comment,'' was all Valentine would say.

Still, Valentine has a penchant for attracting controversy, often against his own wishes, but it sometimes serves only to create an uproar around him. There were well-publicized incidents with Todd Hundley, in which Valentine questioned the former Mets catcher's sleeping habits in 1997 and then suggested last December that Hundley might have felt his differences with Valentine stemmed from ''an Italian thing.''

''Cal Ripken thought it was the most manly thing he's ever seen a guy do,'' Valentine said, referring to how Benitez hit Martinez in the back one pitch after surrendering a three-run homer to Bernie Williams. ''Armando was under a lot of pressure. He thought that's what he was supposed to do. He stood out on the mound and did it. And it wasn't a cheap shot. It wasn't at anybody's head. I just think he should've worked on his jab more.''

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''I don't know how that quote came about,'' Ripken told reporters. ''I saw Bobby Valentine at a New Year's party. He asked me about Armando Benitez. I said: 'I absolutely love him. I think he's got a great arm. Everybody should have an arm on their team like that.' I said: 'I think he's going to develop into someone who's going to be a real good closer someday. He can be so dominating he can strike out two guys out of every three.'

''He said, 'What happened to him last year?' I said, 'I really think the incident in Yankee Stadium affected his season.' At some point, at the end of the conversation, I said, 'One thing's for sure, he's got guts.' I don't know if he brought the Yankee Stadium thing in with the part about the guts or how that came together. Basically it was a positive feeling about how I feel about Armando. I do think he had guts. But it wasn't meant to say that by hitting Tino Martinez that makes him gutsy, by no means.''

Many of the Orioles who were on the field at the time of the incident were actually apologizing to the Yankees while the subsequent brawl raged on. The next day, the Orioles distanced themselves from Benitez's actions. And years ago, Ripken -- Baltimore's unquestioned leader -- would discourage Orioles pitchers from engaging in beanball wars, particularly because he would be a retaliatory target for opposing pitchers.

''We all know it was wrong what happened,'' Ripken said today of last May's brawl. ''There's no real rationale for that. The fact that it happened, you can say, 'O.K., it was wrong, but we can't let you have him.' You still protect your teammate. I don't know where that story came from, but that's basically it.''

INSIDE PITCH

Before the Mets held their first full workout of the spring, two of ARMANDO BENITEZ's new teammates -- ROBIN VENTURA and MARIANO DUNCAN -- said the hard-throwing reliever was so difficult to hit, the only thing that enabled hitters to have any chance was that Benitez constantly tipped off his pitches when he was with the Orioles. The Mets were aware of the trait when they played Baltimore last season, but General Manager STEVE PHILLIPS and the pitching coach BOB APODACA said they would work on eliminating the flaws this spring. ''We've made him aware of it,'' Apodaca said. ''And we have a long time to fix it.'' Not that knowing what was coming would always help, Ventura said. ''It's amazing,'' Phillips said. ''Even though Armando tipped off his pitches, he allowed just 48 hits in 68 1/3 innings last year.'' . . . BRIAN McRAE had to leave practice early after one of his front teeth fell out while he was getting ready to hit. ''It was probably a weak tooth and we probably can expect to see it around TURK WENDELL's neck tomorrow,'' Manager BOBBY VALENTINE cracked.